British Prime Minister David Cameron will face European Union leaders Tuesday as the bloc meets to discuss the UK’s potentially convoluted and messy divorce from the European Union.
The EU parliament will open an extraordinary plenary session of its Conference of Presidents in what will be the first official steps to extricate the UK from its 42-year association with the bloc.
The vote last week to pull out of the union has left Britain with a nasty hangover, sending the pound spiraling, dampening markets, creating a leadership vacuum and triggering talks of Scottish secession from Britain.
Cameron, who announced his resignation after leading a failed campaign to remain in Europe, has said he won’t start the official leaving process — leaving the decision to his successor who is expected to be in place by the start of September.
In order to begin the process, Britain’s government needs to trigger ‘Article 50,’ the clause in the EU constitution which begins the exit procedure for a member country.
“Before we do that, we need to determine the kind of relationship we want with the EU,” he said. “Any new negotiation to leave the EU will begin under a new prime minister.”
First call for referendum do-over
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is the first member of government to suggest that Article 50 should not be triggered until the public has had a chance to vote on a new deal with the EU, by either calling a general election or having another referendum.
Writing in the Telegraph, Hunt suggests the ideal scenario would be what he called a “Norway plus” arrangement, echoing the non-EU member’s relationship with the bloc. He says in the piece that the ideal scenario would still allow access to the single market but with a “sensible” compromise on free movement of people.
“As their biggest non-EU trading partner, it is in the European interest to do this deal with them as much as it is in our interests to secure it,” he writes.
He also suggested that any MP nominated to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister should ensure EU migrants already living in the UK have their rights protected, and pledge that “full permanent residence will be granted to all European citizens living and working in Britain on the day of the referendum.”
At odds
This already puts Cameron at odds with his European counterparts. There is some pressure from EU leaders to start the official process sooner, which involves invoking a clause in the treaty that binds the union.
“We cannot start some sort of informal talks without having received the notice from Great Britain. This is very clear to me,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told journalists in Berlin Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will also be in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting. Earlier, he said that the vote would not change Washington’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain.
No-confidence vote
In the UK, opposition Labour MPs have seized the Brexit turmoil to try to oust leftist party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has taken the party in a new direction after two consecutive election losses to the Conservatives.
The embattled leader faces a no-confidence vote by his party’s MPs Tuesday, the British press is reporting. As many as 150 of Labour’s 229 MPs could vote to dethrone him, the right-leaning Daily Telegraph reports.
The no-confidence vote comes after a slew of resignations from senior Labour Party members in the days following the referendum results, including key members of his shadow cabinet — the group of senior politicians who mirror government portfolios.
The exodus began when Corbyn booted Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn over the weekend, accused of plotting a coup against the embattled leader.
And the jockeying for power has already begun in Cameron’s Conservative Party — prominent leave campaigner Boris Johnson and Cameron ally Theresa May are seen as the front-runners, while Finance Minister George Osborne has ruled himself out of the running.
Broken promises
Like the markets, Brits are jittery, not knowing who will lead their country come October or whether any of the promises made by the leave camp will even come into fruition.
Leave campaigners are already backpedaling on their promises, and many who voted to leave say they feel cheated, and regret their vote.
Leaders are now trying to allay fears that Britain may be heading for recession and are trying to boost confidence in its markets and currency to avoid an economic meltdown.
Cameron reminded parliament that Britain has “one of the strongest major advanced economies in the world.”
But the country just lost its top AAA credit rating with agency Standard & Poor’s, which measures a country’s ability to meet its financial commitments.
Who’s in charge?
Cameron announced in parliament that a new unit would be established to deal specifically with the EU divorce in what he described as one of the “most complex” tasks assigned to the civil service in decades.
It would bring together members of various bodies and services, including the cabinet office, the foreign office and the Treasury, among others.
Global economic shockwaves
Asian markets got off to a gloomy start early Tuesday as Brexit concerns continued to weigh on investors.
The declines followed a brutal day of trading in Europe and the U.S. on Monday.
The Dow slumped 261 points to the lowest level in over three months. That’s on top of Friday’s plunge that wiped 610 points from the index. The combined loss of nearly 900 points makes the post-Brexit turmoil the worst two-day period for U.S. stocks since the August 2015 freak out.
European stock markets came under heavier pressure and the pound dropped to a fresh low Monday following the U.K.’s historic vote to leave the European Union.